Here we go, another film I’ve been wanting to watch for the longest time. My desire to watch Marc Forster’s Finding Neverland stemmed from knowing it was supposed to be a good film and from being curious to see how J.M. Barrie’s life was adapted for the big screen. It took my lovely girlfriend Liz’s persistent recommendation to get me to finally watch it. For that I thank her because the movie does quite the job of depicting this story and even though it’s not necessarily anything thrilling it’s just a very well and carefully made movie.

One thing I really liked about this movie that doesn’t necessarily relate to the content is that it has a very strong cast. With Johnny Depp occupying the main role (J.M. Barrie) and Kate Winslet, Dustin Hoffman, Toby Jones, Kelly Macdonald, and Freddie Highmore also involved, the cast has plenty of star power. This ensured that at the very least the acting would be top-notch. Along with the acting being fantastic, the costumes and set design were also great. This all adds to the air of authenticity that this film exudes and allows me to immerse myself in the film’s universe.

The next things I really liked about the film were the score and the cinematography. The music was very grand yet lighthearted and suited the movie well. The cinematography was also great which adds to why I said this was quite simply put, a very well made movie. The camerawork was great but even more than that the colors were very crisp and bright, super playful which goes with the theme of the movie (iMaGiNaTiOn). One scene that really stood out to me as an example of the creative cinematography happened when Depp was playing pirates with the Davies boys and their mother, the animation of the water and ship were superb! I loved how the film constantly showed J.M. Barrie’s creativity at work and alluded to what would eventually become Peter Pan.

To be honest I don’t have any real complaint with the movie. This is a highly polished movie that does a really good job of depicting the real life birth of Peter Pan. You may be wondering why I only gave this movie a 4.3. Well that would be because while the story was great, the cinematography and acting were top-notch, and it was quite polished, nothing ever happened to elevate the movie beyond just very good. That’s not a bad thing either! Sometimes some movies are just really well made interesting movies, not every movie needs to change your life or reinvent the genre.